Social Media Marketing

Oct

We have earlier talked about how you can as a social media marketer makes a greater impact with the help of insights that these powerful platforms come with.

We will now begin with LinkedIn, much like Facebook you can maintain a company page and a personal profile at once. The benefits that will come with a company page are the ability to not only update statuses but also files, slide share presentations and even videos.

Beginning with the Per Post Insights which are not only accurate to every status update made but also come with details such as the number of followers who viewed the post, and how many times this specific post got clicked.

What makes LinkedIn insights stand out is how they illustrate the engagement in percentages, which are totally based on the whole, the ratio of clicks to the impressions and hence if you don’t already know how many followers you have you will be clueless of the results. But they make up for it with their Follower insights. Not only will you be able to view your engagement rates and the growth but also get a deep look at your follower demographics.

This useful insight tool generates a report, which quickly illustrates the number of followers your page has together with the number of new followers within the last 7 days. In addition, to this you can also keep a check on how many status updates you have shared simultaneously with the average engagement per update. The follower demographics come loaded with astonishing details are accurate, they break down these insights into tabs such as industry that these followers belong to, their function in the company, regions, the company they belong to itself, employee, seniority leading you into looking at what exactly is your outreach and which market you have hit.

Almost all of the account insights have been designed to provide for one piece of crucial information where all essential information is listed which gives brands the leverage to be able to further evaluate their performances on these social media platforms. Instagram, however takes these insights to a whole new level of awesome, with its growing popularity Insta’s dashboard comes loaded with data that has to do with reach, with impressions and with engagement. The statics are also broken down into each week to give you a more insightful look into your performance.

Instagram also features an Ad Insights dashboard which is inclusive of facts and figures that have to with the effectiveness of any given campaign. Not only do these includes all the data related to the performance of the campaigns created and launched by brands. The statistics reflect impressions, but also answer for the reach and the display frequency ensuring all details for every post made. Instagram has a staggering outreach, with the per-follower engagement rate reaching out to that of a 4.21 percent which is almost 50 times as that of Facebook and almost a 125 times more than twitter!

Pinterest:
Pinterest was launched in the midst of all the social media hype and as the platforms were dominated by text updates it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that this largely visual, image-centric platform became such a great hit. The one magical thing about your pinterest account is that the number of people who actually view your posts is greater than your actual followers.

Your pin insights will be able to help you engage a greater number of audience and market your service or product and even your brand smoothly and effortlessly. However, for being able to access this feature you need to be in possession of a verified business account.

image source: dreamgrow.com

You can track your board’s activity and gather data not only from your website but your board at pinterest too, hence you can effectively create a fusion and expand your insights, which will not only be limited to pinterest but also be stretched out to as far as Tumblr.

Where as state of the art features such as Curalate and PinReach add to the magic of mastering the use of pinterest as a social media platform.

9

Oct

The fact that Social media has become a very powerful tool is known far and wide, but with the growing popularity of social media all the many popular social media platforms it is becoming tricky to handle. One needs to ensure that all of these super popular platforms are used to their full potentials and the content put up is able to engage the target audiences. Since all of these tend to function in different ways, the use of social media insights for each is different and produces different results. For this very reason, we are breaking down the strategies into a few simple steps.

Let us begin with Twitter:

Twitter Impressions

Twitter gives you a head start on insights with its free analytics dashboard. With this option, you can closely monitor the success of your content and the engagement you are able to create, providing a key statistics to your account. From new followers to the most effective tweets you will know it all, this feature provides a 28 day summary of your account.

If you track it from one month to other, you can measure the number of new followers and popularity that you have been able to bag.

You can monitor closely and compare longer durations and your performances in the period, the 28 days range is a default you can alter the period. There is also a breakdown of your tweets where not only can you see the engagement but also the number of impressions. These insights, together with insights available for all your tweets, should be enough to help you make out a pattern that appeals to your target audience and help you figure out their likes and dislikes.

And here we are, the super hit: Facebook Insights:

Facebook comes powered with its very own analytics known as the Facebook Insights, the feature is not available if there are under 30 likes on your page. With these insights not only can you determine what best engages your audience but also figure out the best timings to make a post, the key is to be impactful. Posting the right thing at the right time to the right audience is just what can make your social media management not only the most productive but also effective in term of ROI short for Return On Investment.

All you have to do is click on the insights tab, which shows at the top of your Facebook page. Not only can you view your FIVE most recent posts here but also for each of your posts be able to view the outreach, if you sponsored the post, it will also show you how much money you spent and the volume of comments, shares, likes and clicks. You can hence judge the popularity of the post with these figures.

Facebook constantly updates for new likes on your pages, and you can select a certain time period and view the number of new likes if you choose to, you can view these subtracting the number of likes you got through a paid promotion too. Good content has great organic reach, but if sponsored the results are phenomenal as Facebook boasts outreach and the post becomes available to audiences far and wide.

But this is not it… There is a lot more to tell you about social media and its insightful integrations, stay tuned for more!

Sep

Facebook “Dislike” button!

“Not every moment is a good moment,” he said. Facebook is working on the tool, he said, but gave no release date.

Facebook announced to launch perhaps the most awaited “Dislike” feature but it is yet to see whether it will be only be for pages or personal timelines as well. During the Q&A session at Facebook headquarters earlier this week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg said company will soon announce an alternatives to the “Like” button.

“People have asked about the ‘dislike’ button for many years,” Zuckerberg said at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California. “Today is the day that I actually get to say we are working on it.”

Its not sure whether it is going to be a “dislike” feature but it might be something that can be used to show empathy over something you don’t like.

What does a new “Dislike” feature would meant to Brands?

I think the brands will actually have to think twice before posting an update as this might also contribute to newsfeed algorithm and could possibly make a negative impact on page performance. Although, its a bit early to jump on this but still brands have to make sure that they are posting what its audience demands and not something that could potentially goes against them. So, in the coming days it would be interesting to see how brands coup with this new feature.

Jul

If you are reading this post, you have already realized how much important it is for you to be found on LinkedIn searches. Whether your goal is to get a job, talent hunt or creating a personal brand, there are things you need to consider to stay on top of the professional social network.

With growing number of 364 million registered users on LinkedIn, its not an easy ask to position your self like back in the days it was. Some people complain that they do everything right but still don’t see magical improvements in their profile rankings mainly due to other well optimized profiles than probably they have so may be its about time to make sure you are rising against the storm and not sitting behind the competition and missing out opportunities that you certainly don’t want to miss.

Here are some of the ways to fight the LinkedIn algorithms and stay on top of the LinkedIn searches.

Have a Complete Profile!

Include information designed to encourage your potential visitors to find out more about you. Profiles with complete information are 7x more likely to be viewed than those that are without display pictures, relevant keywords & professional headlines.

Compelling Headline:

Expand upon your professional headline and support it, write a solid headline and make sure when your visitors view your profile they get the good first impression so they initiate to connect.

Visualize Your Work:

Show example of your work i.e presentations for the slide share, any skilled certifications that you passed or your latest blog.

Get Connected:

If you don’t have enough connections on LinkedIn, you might not show up on many LinkedIn searches as a 2nd degree connection as you should.

Don’t Ignore Endorsements:

Give endorsements and manage to take few back, endorsements might also affect how you appear in the LinkedIn search.

Get Recommendations, Build Credibility:

You have got to ask for them, recommendations give a real boost to your profile in the long run and help to establish credibility.

Make Your Self Reachable:

Don’t limit the potential growth of your social network. Provide email address, social media links or any other point of contact so that people who are interested in your profile are able to contact you.

Make sure you include your:

email address.

website URL.

or whatever channel you use to correspondence.

Be Engaged!

Don’t forget LinkedIn is a social network, its always important to keep your account engaging and not rusty. LinkedIn has been introducing new features and given more options to interact and engage with colleagues and friends.

Whether you are liking, commenting on your friends updates in the news feeds, interacting in groups, creating or sharing informative posts related to your interests / work, all these tactics will help you to increase in profile views and LinkedIn search visibility.

24

Jan

Having a killer LinkedIn profile means setting up the first impression to anyone who visits your LinkedIn profile, whether a recruiter who could land you on a dream job, old college friends or a potential client that you cant afford losing. Can you?

If you are a small business or an individual its becomes important for you to use all the must have features that LinkedIn offers which ultimately helps you to increase your visibility on one of the top professional social platform. Using the features correctly will bring you more leads and going to help you building the key relationships across the platform in the longer run.

To take complete advantage of the professional social network, you must know from where to start and what information matters most that fits your professional qualities and makes you different from others and helps your potential prospects to reach out to you by simply using terms that belongs to you.

Smartinsights has created an step by step illustrative guide that should take you through each LinkedIn feature that matters most while setting up your Linkedin profile.

Aug

Social media has dramatically changed our world in the last few years. Social media gives everybody the chance to be aware of what is going on around, to give your opinion about the main issues you are interested in, to interact with people, companies and organizations being sure that you will be heard. Nothing is like before, I believe in the power of communication to increase culture, democracy, freedom. Social media contributes definitely to all of these:

But to realise how much importance social media has now become in our daily routines & lives, I have arranged some funny but true facts for my readers so we all could understand what impact it would make if social media stopped existing altogether?

Well, some of us may need to find a new job. Lol

We might have to Sharpen our pencils and start licking stamps..

We may feel Stress, lonely, cut out of world..

We would lose almost all of my photos..

My distant connections would be lost..I wouldn’t see their children grow, know which movies they saw, see the amount of whipped cream they have on their latte or hear about the snake that scared them in the backyard..

Sit by the fire circle every evening, right? Hard to imagine..

Shocking, panic! It would be much more difficult to get my message out there!

But more privacy and I would have to work harder to stay in contact with friends and contacts..

Most likely, everyone’s email boxes and text message systems would be overflowing..

Probably a lot of great info missed out on, tons of inspiration & laughs..

No one would know what to do with their free time 😉

We would only have contact with those who TRULY mean something in our lives..

A lot more books might be read by people..

People might come on streets with their updated status and photos..Lol!

Newspapers would rise from the ashes..

PR people would get their lives back.. 🙂

People would be forced to actually speak to each other face to face again..

Ten steps backwards..

A sad situation..

Above stated fun facts were just to scare the hell out of you..so just relax!!

Social media is not going anywhere in fact the good news is that it will continue to evolve, but I don’t see it disappearing. The genie is out of the bottle and won’t be put back. People asked the same question about the telephone and the World Wide Web, which led to improvements of both technologies.

But, if I’m wrong and social media dies? I’d partner with someone to build the next best thing.. 😉

I would love to listen / hear your thoughts as how you would perceive it? Please feel free to to tweet at @umairquraishi

19

Jul

Social media marketing may be time consuming but just because you don’t have time to manage, you cannot put your chances of growth on hold. Small business owners usually lacks time and resources and the only best resolution to this problem is to outsource what you can’t handle because your business can’t afford to lose opportunities due to such compromises. If you are not clear over strategy or determining ROI then you must figure it out by yourself or either get someone on the board who is well aware of the subject matter and could help you to achieve your business goals & objectives.

Branding and engagement are important parts of your business strategy and you as a business owner must know and decide when its the right time to hire a social media consultant and get the job done or either you are all set to handle it by yourself.

Below are the key areas that should be take into consideration to decide whether your business needs social media consultant or you have what it got to take it to the skies!!!

Identify Your Goals & Objectives:

I think that you should look at what the business wants to accomplish with social media. “Just because it is there, doesn’t mean you need it.” In other words, not all companies need a heavy social media presence. The reason that a company would hire a professional is if they can see that others in their industry are seeing success and they are unable to duplicate that success or they don’t have the time or energy to pursue it.

Again, the business needs to identify their main goal or intent. Goals can include generating likes, comments, engagement, traffic to website, traffic to Facebook page, leads etc. Otherwise you are investing in something and not measuring any results.

Getting Started with Social Media Strategy:

Social media is like any other area of marketing and should be used as part of the overall marketing mix. Having a good marketing plan and strategy in place and knowing who you wish to speak to is the key. What to say can be more of a daunting task. Small businesses just engage with their audience naturally and see great success, as the organization gets bigger is where there are more challenges. Knowing that professional help is available enables the small business to call on this as and when is needed. But having the help from a social media consultant or marketing strategist is mostly recommended based on what the owners want to achieve and invest.

Maximize Available Resources:

It depends in my opinion that how much time & skills small businesses have available to manage social media all by themselves. When they have no money for it, they must invest the time. And most small companies have no budget for it. Then they could get Hootsuite, great tool to operate social channels, schedule posts for future dates, analyze and monitor.

Small and medium businesses have different levels of need and budget. Those who have less of a budget and have no choice but to manage it themselves, They can work with to establish a regular routine of daily, weekly and monthly ‘habits’ that they can fit into their busy schedules and make managing social as time efficient as possible.

But of course if the company has a good budget for it, they can outsource it when they have not the knowledge within the company, means when they have no responsible person for it.

No One Knows Your Business Better Than You Do:

Small businesses should be on Social Media, at least Facebook and mostly if they are targeting locally. It’s the best way to engage/influence their reputation. I think also that even if they don’t have a website, Social Media can & should be their voice online. Now there is the problem of knowledge how/whom/when to do it.

I’ve seen many owners engaging their customers very successfully on their own without a clear strategy or without knowing it. Mainly small businesses are a family oriented, meaning that the children are involved and they are fully comfortable with most of the social media platforms. They know how to engage the conversation online within their group of age. But does this work? Yes and No.

The ideal scenario is for someone within a business to write social content, after all who knows a business like the people in it? – However, most small business struggle with the aspect of social media marketing mainly because of time constraints. This is where hiring a social media consultant or SME becomes credible. Every business should have a relevant social presence, and hiring a consultant means the headache is gone.